I tried another new recipe last night from Quick Fix Vegan. The Sesame Ginger Seitan with snow peas. She offered a lot of sub options, and I used them! Tempeh for the seitan, added in some eggplant, red bell peppers, and shallot in place of half of the green onions (working with what I had). Kept the sauce the same, but made MORE of it.

It was good. Again, not spectacular, but a very tasty, easy weeknight meal. Next time I will add more sauce if I use tempeh, since it soaked it all up super fast.

Here is a not great pic. It looks much better on my instagram. I use imgur for my gallery, and I think it makes stuff blurry. boo.

If you guys are on instagram, there are a couple of hashtags for this challenge: #ppkcookbookchallenge #vegancookbookchallenge

Also, I have TWO copies of this book, I am looking possibly to do a swap if anyone is interested. It's a good book.

That EDBV red pepper almond hummus is the best stuff ever. Only a little hyperbole! My mom and I overdid it because we always had a batch in the fridge for a while. Makes the best wraps and sandwiches. Yum, yum.

The white bean and thyme and black bean and orange are great too.

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

I tried another new recipe last night from Quick Fix Vegan. The Sesame Ginger Seitan with snow peas. She offered a lot of sub options, and I used them! Tempeh for the seitan, added in some eggplant, red bell peppers, and shallot in place of half of the green onions (working with what I had). Kept the sauce the same, but made MORE of it.

It was good. Again, not spectacular, but a very tasty, easy weeknight meal. Next time I will add more sauce if I use tempeh, since it soaked it all up super fast.

.......

that looks really good! i have yet to try tempeh but maybe i could try this dish with seitan. seeing this dish reminded me about how much i used to love take-out sesame chicken but not the poopsies it gave me :( which is why several years ago i stopped eating restaurant prepared chinese food all together and started making it at home. TMI but i'm not deleting it ;)

_________________"....but I finally found block tempeh a few weeks ago with the intent to give it my virginity." -Moon

I tried another new recipe last night from Quick Fix Vegan. The Sesame Ginger Seitan with snow peas. She offered a lot of sub options, and I used them! Tempeh for the seitan, added in some eggplant, red bell peppers, and shallot in place of half of the green onions (working with what I had). Kept the sauce the same, but made MORE of it.

It was good. Again, not spectacular, but a very tasty, easy weeknight meal. Next time I will add more sauce if I use tempeh, since it soaked it all up super fast.

.......

that looks really good! i have yet to try tempeh but maybe i could try this dish with seitan. seeing this dish reminded me about how much i used to love take-out sesame chicken but not the poopsies it gave me :( which is why several years ago i stopped eating restaurant prepared chinese food all together and started making it at home. TMI but i'm not deleting it ;)

When I make tempeh, I always steam it first, then I brown the hell out of it before cooking. That gets rid of any bitterness. I loved the tempeh in this dish.

I made the Cajun Chickpea Cakes, and accompanying Vegan Mayo and Smoky Cajun Mayo from Everyday Happy Herbivore. First time I've made anything from this book, and possibly may be the last. Vegan Mayo was awful, the 2-3 T. Dijon mustard (I used 2) was totally overpowering. Tried adding extra agave to counteract it, but it didn't help. The Cajun mayo was slightly better, I used a commercial seasoning, instead of the author's blend, but still not a tasty topping. The Chickpea cakes were pretty awful, strangely seasoned, and mushy. I usually eat leftovers, even when I'm unimpressed with a recipe, but don't think that will happen with these.

The photos (including the chickpea cakes) in this book are gorgeous. However, my finished product did not resemble the photo at all - that always annoys me when I've followed a recipe exactly. I'll be checking to see if there's a thread for this book (or if anyone has any recommendations from this book, I'd love to hear them).

Yesterday I made the Carrot and Roasted Bell Pepper Soup from Color Me Vegan. I had made this recipe once before and it was fine, but this time it turned out weird. :(

Possible culprits: - the bell peppers: Last time I either used jarred red and yellow bell peppers or red ones I roasted myself. This time I used one yellow and one orange bell pepper, roasted two days prior. Do you have to use roasted bell peppers immediately after roasting? Do they not keep in the fridge? I think I'm gonna stick to jarred ones from now on...- miso: I had to use a different miso than I usually do because my usual brand wasn't available. Maybe this miso is kind of weird?- maybe my milk was too sweet?

The soup is edible, but I'm not really looking forward to the left-overs. I really liked this soup when I made it for the first time, so I'm quite disappointed!

And an update on the Hot and Sour Soup: I added soba to the left-overs on the next day. I picked soba because of the brown colour scheme and it went well together. I definitely prefer the soup with soba - yum, noodles!

I made the ginger and pear waffles in VWAV for breakfast. They were tricky. No matter now long I left them in they would have some kind of separation when I opened the iron so I had to open it super careful. They got nice and crispy when they cooled a bit though. I'm sure they would taste good if my tastebuds were actually doing their job right now. I topped them with kiwi, strawberries and maple syrup.

I made the Cajun Chickpea Cakes, and accompanying Vegan Mayo and Smoky Cajun Mayo from Everyday Happy Herbivore. First time I've made anything from this book, and possibly may be the last. Vegan Mayo was awful, the 2-3 T. Dijon mustard (I used 2) was totally overpowering. Tried adding extra agave to counteract it, but it didn't help. The Cajun mayo was slightly better, I used a commercial seasoning, instead of the author's blend, but still not a tasty topping. The Chickpea cakes were pretty awful, strangely seasoned, and mushy. I usually eat leftovers, even when I'm unimpressed with a recipe, but don't think that will happen with these.

The photos (including the chickpea cakes) in this book are gorgeous. However, my finished product did not resemble the photo at all - that always annoys me when I've followed a recipe exactly. I'll be checking to see if there's a thread for this book (or if anyone has any recommendations from this book, I'd love to hear them).

So today I cooked for the first time out of Leah Leneman's Vegan Cooking for One. I made the Irish stew with frozen tofu (although I just used regular tofu as I didn't have any frozen):

I probably wouldn't cook this dish for omnis as actually it was a pretty plain and simple looking dish with most of the flavour apart from the veg coming from yeast extract and marinated tofu. However, it was warming and quite tasty, which was just what I needed today!

The one thing that annoyed me is that preparing it is quite energy-intensive with a large number of stages (admittedly she does note this on the recipe page) and actually resulted in quite a basic stew despite the huge effort I put in! Also I doubled the amount of vegetable stock recommended as the volume in the recipe didn't even cover the vegetables in the saucepan.

_________________"Your mother was a superstitious hamster, and your father smelled of elderberry (right before he died of an untreated infection). Now go away, before we taunt you with your credulous magical thinking a second time!" - Desdemona

I managed to make WVF No-Knead Crusty Artisanal Bread without burning my fingers. Yay! Sadly, I misread the amount of salt as teaspoons instead of tablespoons, but I just put more salt into whatever I'm eating with the bread. It's very tasty, especially dipped into olive oil and salt.

I also made Traditional Style Vegan Pesto, the basic version, but I didn't take a photo of it. I didn't add the optional lemon juice, because, well, Bryanna loves lemon juice in excess for some reason, I don't. The pesto is really tasty. I usually don't add much oil to pesto (I use water to make it blendable), but I used the amount stated in the recipe. I think I'll be adding miso to every pesto I make from now on.

Allularpunk, I agree there are way too many steps. I used some shortcuts while making the bread because that's the point of no-knead bread. Your sweet potato soup looks delicious, but I'm not sure if I should make it.

Also, Bryanna really likes silken tofu. That's great, but she should mention alternatives for us who can't get it or find it way too expensive (I tried to make it at home, it ended in disaster, haven't tried since).

I was actually surprised that I made that much to be honest! I will probably do some more out of it during the next fortnight too since I am using Vegan Brunch and I won't manage to get much in the way of lunches in it. I will probably do a few more soups because they are the handiest for lunches and it is just so darn cold here lately.

I make the Cajun baked fries all the time; so good. I'm a heat-o-phobe and the amount of cayenne is perfect even for me.

The tofu dill salad is one of my favorite things ever. And I like the Alfreda sauce, but it is definitely a strange list of ingredients. Works though! And, hmm. Blanking. The sundried tomato pesto and millet cakes. Plus the cookies and pancakes and waffles.

_________________"This is the creepiest post ever if you don't know who Molly is." -Fee"a vegan death match sounds like something where we all end up hugging." -LisaPunk

daisychain, you have inspired me to use VWAV for my Isa/Terry free weeks. So excited! I'm going to make Fronch Toast for the first time ever, Crazy.

As for me...

Egyptian Style Beans from WVF. These are just ok. They took less time than it stated to cook (1.5 hours rather than 2-2.5 hours), so that was great, but tasting it at the end left me feeling rather blah. I dumped a bunch more cumin, coriander, and salt into it, and that made it a little better. I also just mixed in the garnishes of cilantro, green onions, and lemon juice, which helped, too. I'm bummed that I didn't absolutely love everything I've made from this book and that I don't like her method of cooking. Oh well...just makes me more excited for next week!

_________________But if one were to tickle Pluto, I suspect that it might very quietly laugh. - pandacookie

55k usd is like 4 cad or whatever equivalent in beavers you use on the island - joshua